PocketBible and iOS 7

This week brings the release of iOS 7 from Apple. As this new version of the operating system rolls out to more and more devices we’re beginning to hear from you about what’s working and what’s not. I want to take a minute to tell you how to work around the one problem we know about, then tell you what we’re doing to fix that, then tell you what I think about all this. Since that flows from absolutely important to “who cares?”, you can stop reading as soon as your questions are answered.

“Go To Verse” on the iPad

iOS 7 removed a feature of “popover views” (the box that pops up out of the toolbar to show you our “go to verse” buttons) that allowed developers to specify the size of the contents they were putting in the view if that size changes after the initial contents are placed. As a result, after you choose a book, the view gets resized to its default size, and the chapter buttons get cut off.

There are two work-arounds for this:

Press the button in the upper left corner to go back to the list of books and choose your book again. This little bit of magic seems to break Apple’s concentration and they quit trying to resize the view.

Choose a different go-to method for the time being. To do this, go to the Settings menu, scroll down to Program Settings, and choose a different Bible Verse Selection method. There are two other than the book/chapter/verse buttons that are the default: The Calculator method and the Spinner method. Of the two, the spinner is the easiest to use and is less quirky. Choose the Spinner and work your way out of the Settings menu. Next time you choose Go To, you’ll see the Spinner instead of the buttons.

There are other small cosmetic issues you may or may not notice as you use the program. We don’t know of anything that affects the actual function or usability of the program beyond the one mentioned above.

What We’re Doing About It

While developers have had access to beta versions of the iOS 7 developer’s toolkit for several months, we’ve found in the past that you can waste a lot of time chasing the changing specifications of the new version of the operating system if you start your work too early. For iOS 6, many developers were stunned to discover the apps they developed and uploaded to the App Store using the final beta version (which was approved by Apple for submission to the App Store) did not function correctly on the final released version of iOS 6. They had to scramble to make changes. So with all this in mind, and after reviewing the new features in iOS 7, we decided to wait until we had a version of the developer’s toolkit that was closer to final.

We’re working on version 3.0 of PocketBible, which will be fully iOS 7 compatible. Most of the changes we have to make are user interface related. That is, tweaking colors and behavior of the UI to match the new, flat look of iOS 7. There are several new features in PocketBible 3, but these have been in beta for a few weeks now and are in pretty good shape. In particular:

Advanced Feature Set – New Features

Journal Notes allow you to take notes that are not associated with any particular Bible verse.

Assign names to your highlight colors.

Features in the Standard (Free) Version

Autosync feature allows you to synchronize your user data (notes, highlights, bookmarks, etc.) with the Laridian cloud automatically in the background while you continue to work. Manual sync is still available if you prefer.

Synchronization speed is improved.

Added underline styles (underline, dotted, and dashed) to the list of highlight choices.

Display one verse per paragraph (start each verse on a new line).

Support iOS swipe gestures to delete notes, highlights, bookmarks, etc. from lists of those items.

When deleting a bookmark category, the bookmarks themselves are deleted (instead of being moved to “uncategorized”

Added “Email Passage” and “Text Passage” to the list of “Passage Actions”.

Various speed improvements and minor bug fixes.

This version of PocketBible will be uploaded to the App Store soon. We’re still working through all the issues brought about by the release of iOS 7. In the meantime, the only thing you really need to do is change your go-to-verse method.

So What Do We Think About All This

One of the frustrations with our industry as a whole and Apple in particular is the pace at which it changes. Most of the changes in iOS 7 that affect us are cosmetic. Apple has decided that it’s their user interface, not their limited availability and high price, that negatively impacts their sales. So they spent a lot of time turning everything flat, gray, and translucent. Many of those changes are applied to programs automatically, but not all of them are implemented well.

For example, in the intrest of transparency, the system status bar (the signal strength indicator and clock across the top) is now transparent. That’s great, but our app is used to a solid status bar and would never bother to put anything behind it. Now, since that bar is transparent, the OS tells us it isn’t there and tricks us into writing under it. So when the status bar is laid over top, it just is unreadable since it’s either black or white text on top of a white page of black text. So we had to take the time to create a little colored rectangle to put under the status bar so you can see it.

While changing the look of table views (those lists of contacts, appointments, settings, etc. that you see all over iOS), they decided the headings between groups of choices should ALWAYS BE UPPER CASE. So it looks like THE PHONE IS YELLING AT YOU all the time. Furthermore, they limited the text to six lines without documenting the limit nor truncating the text. So it’s possible for text to flow over the list items. This would be fine if they provided a way to say DON’T YELL AT ME but they didn’t. So we had to implement custom text views to put in those locations.

This is all characteristic of a philosophy that has little sense of history or the importance of supporting existing apps, existing versions of the OS, or existing hardware. For example, PocketBible 3 will be compatible with iOS 5 devices, but you won’t find much, if any, mention of iOS 5 from Apple. I know people running iOS 4 and 5 who just never bother to plug their device into their PC/Mac to download updates. It’s working for them, so why bother? I’m typing this blog article on a PC running Windows XP. It works great. Why upgrade? Apple doesn’t understand this idea. They assume everyone rushes out and buys a new phone every year or two, or they at least upgrade the operating system every time an update is available.

As a result of this blindness to the past, it’s not unusual to discover that something is broken in the OS and it’s just never going to get fixed. For example, we depend on a particular method being called (viewWillDisappear:) when one of our “dialog boxes” is dismissed. I found out yesterday that iOS 7 breaks that rule (it’s been around since version 2) in certain cases. As a result, instead of one programmer at Apple fixing one bug, it creates millions of bugs in hundreds of thousands of apps, and each of those hundreds of thousands of programmers has to take an hour or two to figure out how to work around it. Apple doesn’t care because programmers who start programming new apps tomorrow will never know any differenc and will always code as if viewWillDisappear: won’t always be called, and they are the only ones who matter.

It’s as if Apple has incubation pods where they harvest new programmers. They pull them out of their drawer and they start writing code with no sense of what came before. A year later, after working 24×7 with no sleep, they are recycled to feed the next batch, which are harvested just in time to release the next unnecessary update to the operating system.

Anyway…

We’re still in the process of making changes, but this is just a couple little things we’ve run into in the process of moving PocketBible to iOS 7. We think you’ll like PocketBible 3 when we’re done, but it’s going to take a couple more weeks to get there. In the meantime, change your go-to-verse settings and 2.0.6 will continue to work fine.

62 Responses

I know you’re busy dealing with iOS 7’s anomalies but, once you’re done, a *REALY* nice feature (that I enjoyed with PocketBible back in the days of my HP iPAQ) is a button to go forward like the button that goes backwards. Many times, while following along with the preacher, we’ll bounce back and forth between a few scriptures. I can always go back in history but I have to re-find the ones going forward that I’ve already found.

I just tried the “spinner” style for looking up book, chapter, verse … not sure I would want to get used to using it, but could if I needed to. Are you looking to “fix” the issue so that the table lookup will work, without having to reselect your book?

I’m wondering if it would be better to just wait before upgrading to iOS 7. I normally upgrade right away, but iOS 6 is not giving me any grief, so I don’t know that there’s any urgency to upgrade.

The book/chapter/verse picker is working fine in my iOS 7 build. So you’ll see it working again in PocketBible 3.

In my personal opinion most people won’t miss anything by not upgrading right away to iOS 7. You’ll want to upgrade eventually but you’re frankly not missing anything. Well, maybe the automatic app upgrades — those are cool. The device just downloads updated apps for you while you’re not doing anything else.

just want to say, I love your product. I teach adult Bible school, and Laridian has revolutionized the way I do research and prep. Plus, in class I have all my key references right there on my iPad, for when I get “stumped.” Thank you for this invaluable ministry!

Your iPad/iPhone already has this feature. Look in Settings, General, Accessibility. “Invert Colors” makes everything the opposite so text is white on black. Then go down to”Accessibility Shortcut” and you can make it so triple-clicking the Home button will invert your colors.

The CJB in PocketBible is terrific for reading the weekly Torah Portions. If you’ve never done this, I encourage you to do so this coming Simchat Torah.

[iOS] Open CJB, go to BckM, then 1, then 32. There is the beginning of the Parashot / Torah Portions. Then page down/over to appropriate place. As you finish a highlighted portion, press back arrow to go back to the reading list.

For the Scripture Readings for the Festivals & Fasts of YHWH, go to BckM, then 1, then 33. Then page down/over to appropriate place. Please consider that these are the Feasts (moedim) of YHWH, not just “the feasts of the Jews”, and are therefore [are “rehearsals”] for all believers.

In the Windows version go to BckM, then 32 or 33.

If some of this is not clear, it may require a tutorial (took me a while to understand how to do this).

PocketBible has done a great job on this. Great job Craig! Thank you!

Since our Messiah is The Word Who became flesh, and tabernacled amongst us, it is a Blessing to know Him in these readings. If you believe in Messiah Yahshua, then you are grafted in to the Commonwealth of Israel.

Thank you, Craig & company, for not only the very best across-platform Bible app, but for your response to your loyal customers – always informative and witty, as well. I shall carry that image of pod-grown Apple techs with me for a long time! I’ve been using PB for at least 10 years now, and it just gets better and better. Thank you!

This is for Mike Shelton’s comment written September 20, 2013 at 2:14 pm. I use a BookMark on my iPad to select all the verses being used in a bible study. This makes jumping back and forth much easier than the postits I used to use in my paper bible. the new features of v3 will really help manage the bookmarks. I would like to see the ability to order items in a book mark so I can use it as part of my outline. Have I mentioned how much I love this product?

I am a huge fan of Laridian since the Palm OS days. One of the most useful features was the ability to do a Passage Action and copy a whole passage into a text message. This is one of my favorite things to do especially for men I am discipling. After the iOS7 update, I went to copy a passage via the PASSAGE ACTION function and it copied it into my text as an html type file which came out totally corrupted on the other end. This is a huge disappointment as it was one of my main uses of the program. Is this on you guy’s radar? Please advise. Thanks ! Blessings!!

Contact tech support and explain exactly what you’re doing. I don’t understand what you mean by “copied it into my text as an html type file”, and I don’t understand if “came out totally corrupted on the other end” means it didn’t look like what you expected when you pasted it into a text or it looked different to the recipient than it did to you when you sent it. If you can explain this more clearly to tech support we can help.

I just wanted to say thanks for legacy iOS support. While I like to teach from an Android tablet (when using a podium), there’s nothing like the size of an iPod Touch 4 when you want to slip something in and out of your pocket.

Thanks for proving out what the Bible says about not being given anything we can’t handle. Thanks for a great product who I’ve had since my HP days. You all are a blessing to me everyday I open PB. Never though abount my Apple being forbidden fruit…. Wonder if Eve was handing Adam an iPad witn iOS7…

I’ve been a PocketBible user beginning with my original Palm Pilot, then Pro, then Treo, now iPhone…you get the picture. Now it is on all my kids and wife’s platforms. I want to suggest for consideration a feature that I’ve always wanted – a click-and-drag way of highlighting or underlining only part of a verse or a single word.

Thanks for the suggestion. Very few, if any, Bible programs offer this feature. There are several complications, which I’ve talked about before. One is that we would have to do a database query to get the highlight color for every character. Consider that we currently have to do one query per verse, which would be 31,000 queries if you scrolled through the whole bible. If we highlight by word, that would be over 750,000 queries. And if we offer the ability to start a highlight in the middle of a word and highlight single letters, that would be 3.5 million queries.

If you think about that for a single verse, we’d be going from one database query to over a hundred queries. This has the potential of making it take 100 times longer to load a page of text.

On top of that, there’s the issue of supporting the synchronization of this data between platforms. We use different display technologies on each platform and it would be a real mess in those cases (like Android and the upcoming PocketBible for Mac) where we use the operating system’s built-in web viewer to display the text.

This is something we’d really like to do but the technical challenges have kept both us and the other Bible software companies from doing this.

Thanks for all the good updates and information. FWIW, this is the app that gets the most use on all my iPlatforms. I would like to add a +1 to Mike’s comment regarding the development of “a click-and-drag way of highlighting or underlining only part of a verse or a single word.” That would be outstanding!

Changing the Settings works fine, but I do like the table for Book/Chapter/Verse. Thank you for the alternative options.

I have not updated to iOS7, the problem I have is in Search/Find “words or phrase” that it freezes up as soon as the Search has been found. No problem if searching the Help, but Search in Bible & it freezes up.

I don’t quite understand why the ability to highlight in Commentaries, Dictionaries is not doable. Years & years ago I could do that on my PDA so I would think technology would be moving forward rather than backward.

I use Logos & Olive Tree but I go to PB first for speed in finding Book/Chaper/Verse.

Thank you for all your work to bring helpful ways to read & study the Bible.

Bev, contact tech support with your search problem. We’ve never seen it freeze up here. Highlighting is a problem for all the reasons cited in one of my previous comments. The comments apply to all books, not just Bibles. Again, they are problems we’d like to solve, but it’s a series of pretty significant problems.

I’ve been using PocketBible for many years starting with the Palm OS. In regards to your comments about Apple in general, what did you mean by “limited availability”. Yes, Apple products are higher priced but I have tried an Android based tablet and did not like it. I think the iOS platform is much better in terms of usability. And, by the way, how many versions of Android are out there today?

Randy, by “limited availability” I mean the iPhone is not available from all carriers. I’m not saying that Android or any other platform is better than iOS, I’m saying that if Apple is having trouble selling iPhones it’s not because the user interface isn’t flat, dull, lifeless, and uninteresting enough. That’s the problem they solved in iOS 7, and I don’t think it’s a problem anyone was asking them to solve.

As an xCode developer, I got a real kick out of your Apple/iOS7 comments! How true. Thanks for the insights into your development trials and tribulations. I can only assume you “Consider it all joy…..”

You WILL be blessed for this work!

Being about 90% done with an OSX application, I sure hope Apple doesn’t decide to drag iOS7 into OSX!

Thanks so much for Laridian! I have used it consistently since the first iPaq came out.
One feature I would greatly appreciate is if the system kept a register of downloaded books, bibles as well as open bibles, and if the system downloaded those whenever the idevice is restored, upgraded or reinstalled. Which for me is more than once a year on 5 devices.
With 15 versions, it seems really backwards to need to manually reload each version, then reopen each version in a particular order, then to have to do that in 5 windows. Then to do that in 5 devices!
Please

Jerry, our Windows Phone app keeps track of downloaded books and allows you to re-download them easily. Personally, since I also maintain the software and databases on our server, anything that reduces server load is good for me, and making you re-download books one at a time is one of those things.

I too have used Pocket Bible since the Palm days. Thank you for a great program. As long as this seems to be a transition time, being able have the text in two columns in landscape mode on the ipad would be great. I do most of my reading in landscape mode and the single column is a bit too wide. Thanks.

Love Laririan, have used it of years, back on the Palm OS days! One thing he Palm version had that I would Love, love, love to see you add to IPad & IPhone version is the ability to highlight only particular words or phrases with in a verse. Some time there is a key idea with in a verse than I want to highlight and can’t so instead have to make a mor detailed note on the verse. Thanks for the terrific app! Looking forward to IOS7 fixes! I recommend this to everyone I know!

I’ve loved your program since the day’s of my Sony PDA, through my Palm TX (I still use) to my iPad, iPhone, and PC.

I still use the TX just for the Bible app and Daily Reader. I hope someday to see the iPad/iPhone via Apple’s dev kit to allow for just selecting today’s reading choice and viewing only the corresponding verses.

I also love your PocketBible. I have 2 questions/requests.
1. I would like to “bookmark” verses in a random order, not just in chronological order.
2. Is it possible to bookmark and/or highlight more than one verse at a time?

Thanks for the suggestion regarding being able to rearrange your bookmarks. This presents some challenges but probably could be done. Consider using BookBuilder to create a topical reference book where each topic is a list of links in the order in which you’d like to view them. With the tools at our website, you can start with your current bookmark topics and easily create a PocketBible book if you own BookBuilder.

You can highlight more than one verses at a time but not bookmark. Since highlights are really just bookmarks that also color the verse, consider using highlights instead of bookmarks if you find yourself wanting to do a lot of ranges of verses.

Craig,
Thanks for the info on highlighting or underling a single word or multiple words in a verse. I didn’t understand why it wasn’t offered. I highlight verses all the time, when I actually only want a few words or word. If a way ever shows up to decrease your programming time AND loading time, put me on the list. But for now, I’m educated. Love, love, love your app. I lead worship at my church and read from either my phone or iPad often during the service. THANKS! (I wasn’t yelling)

I too have been using Pocket Bible since my Palm days. I think it’s the best Bible app out there. However, after looking over your list of improvements in v 3, it seems like nothing major. Perhaps I’m wrong though and you have had a lot of requests for those features. One thing I have asked for and I see others have asked for would be to be able to highlight a single word or words. Someone mentioned that you explained why you haven’t added that feature but I can’t find where you gave that info.

Regarding Apple changing things with their operating systems, I know it’s not ideal to have to modify your app to work properly with each new iOS version. However, it’s the same with Windows. I have a friend who has a Windows based software program and I know he has had to make modifications with each version of the Windows OS. That’s just the nature of the software business. And, I don’t think Apple is having any problems selling iPhones

after looking over your list of improvements in v 3, it seems like nothing major. Perhaps I’m wrong though and you have had a lot of requests for those features.

Yes, you’re wrong.

Being able to change your highlight color names is a very frequently requested feature. Having those names sync with the server and with other devices on other platforms is a major bonus.

Being able to take notes that are not associated with any Bible verse is a huge feature that has been on the to-do list for fifteen years. Again, having them sync with the server so we’ll eventually be able to view them on other platforms is a bonus.

Our rewrite of the sync mechanism is a major improvement in speed and convenience, and was not an insignificant amount of work. It involved writing a custom TCP server and updating the sync protocol on all our platforms, even those that aren’t adopting the new protocol.

One verse per paragraph is one of our most requested features.

Easier deletion of bookmarks, notes, and highlights, and the deletion of bookmarks when a category is deleted is a frequently suggested feature.

The upgrade is free and automatic, so even if all we did was change the background colors, it’s not like it would cost you anything. So the fact that we are adding some major features is at least worth mentioning. Sorry if the features we’re adding aren’t worth the nothing you’ll spend to download them.

…be able to highlight a single word or words. Someone mentioned that you explained why you haven’t added that feature but I can’t find where you gave that info.

I know it’s not ideal to have to modify your app to work properly with each new iOS version. However, it’s the same with Windows. I have a friend who has a Windows based software program and I know he has had to make modifications with each version of the Windows OS. That’s just the nature of the software business.

This afternoon I re-did all the iconography for PocketBible for iOS. This involved creating vector-based drawings and scaling them to 28 different sizes and shapes and saving them as PNG files. I used Fireworks MX on my Windows PC. Fireworks MX came out in 2002 and still works fine. PocketBible for Windows came out in 2006 I think and it runs fine under Windows 8 Desktop. Windows 8 marks the first time that a company might want to do a major update of its PC apps since maybe Windows 98, and even then it’s optional. Even if you disagree with that, you can’t disagree with the point I’m making in this article, which is that mobile OS companies make major changes to their operating systems WAY more frequently than a) necessary and b) desktop OS makers do.

I don’t think Apple is having any problems selling iPhones

You’re missing my point. It is, in fact, the case that Apple could sell more iPhones if they were available on more carriers. And it is, in fact, the case that Apple’s devices have been historically expensive compared to other smartphones. They are addressing this with the new C models. My point was that when it comes to the user experience, it is not the case that people thought the user interface was too skeuomorphic so they flocked to Android instead. Yet that is the problem Apple chose to address.

I hope this helps clarify the points I was trying to make, helps give you some insight into why we addressed the features we did in version 3, and helps you see the challenges we face doing word-level highlighting.

Thanks for the reply. I didn’t mean to imply that the features you added didn’t take a lot of time to accomplish. I actually use bookmarks and highlights all the time and have never thought they were lacking in functionality (other than being able to highlight individual words)

Sync speed increase sounds great, I just have never seen a need to name highlights. But, if that’s been requested by many people, then I stand corrected.

Another thing on my wish list would be to have the auto scrolling that you had on Winows mobile when I used that platform. And my last wish is to be able to change the color of the highlight for linked verses.

BTW, don’t take any of my comments as an assault on your work, it’s just that I happen to like iOS system updates :-). Thanks very much for your personal replies on this blog.

Wow. Hadn’t stumbled on the 3.0 update info until today and so thankful for the dis-connected notes feature.

Just wondered if there’s any plan (or have I missed how to) to allow split screen with another app? My “journal” is Evernote and I don’t expect you to reinvent that wheel. Barring that, I’ll give disconnected journaling a whirl.

On the topic of notes, would it be possible to add notes to Devotionals at the daily reading level? There I could see keeping notes on a daily reading and letting those buildup over yeArs to see what new insights a passage brings. Maybe that’s ready addressed in another creative way.

We don’t import/export notes with any other app. Everyone uses something different and that would consume all our time. You can copy passages to the clipboard and paste to another app, and you can copy text from other apps and paste to PocketBible. You can also create books for PocketBible using BookBuilder using text you’ve compiled in other apps.

You can already add notes to devotionals in the iPad version. You’ll be able to do that in the iPhone version with version 3.

This is by far and above all other bible software. It requires learning but wow. For the serious learner nothing… I mean nothing touches it with all the features and syncing between all your books. Reference galore! Love laridian and want all Christians to have it, understand how to use it, and learn the word, and it’s kingdom like this little dude can perform.

PocketBible for iOS works like other book readers (Kindle etc.) and presents text in pages. We’ll probably do something about it in a future release but not right now. I need to get this iOS 7 update out then get back on OSX.

Hey there,
Thank you for the info. I thought I was doing something wrong when I hit the “Go To” button.
Also, is it possible to be able, in the future to highlight other books (Devotionals, Commentaries, etc.)?
Thank you so much

Like many others have stated, I have been a Laridian user since the days of Palm, I have used it on many different platforms. I love the time and effort you put into developing and maintaining it, thank you for all you do. May The Lord bless you!

Long time user of PocketBible. Really appreciate al the work that goes into maintaining and upgrading the interface. I had no idea what a pain it is to keep up with all the Apple ios updates. Makes me appreciate Laridian even more. Keep up the great work!

I love the new iOS 7 update, however…. it now takes a LOT longer to open app than it used to. Do you know why this is and if there is a way to fix this? When I launch the new PocketBible, it is unresponsive for at least 20 seconds with the title bar displaying “–” instead of the Bible Reference that I was at last.

Please let me know, as this is very annoying. Waiting 20+ seconds for an app to load is not very impressive.

PocketBible 3 actually launches faster than PocketBible 2 did. So I suspect something else has changed — you’ve downloaded more books, you’re now synchronizing your user data and have more notes/highlights/bookmarks, or maybe just the state of the Toolbox is different.

You can affect launch speed by trying these options:
1) Don’t download more books than you’re actually going to use.
2) Don’t have more books open in panes than you really need.
3) Don’t leave a Find active when you exit the program. If you have a lot of books installed, it may take a while to restore the previous Find results when you launch.
4) Try closing the Toolbox when you exit the program and see if it launches quicker the next time.

I have been using the new ipad app on my ipad mini and while I see the changes, it’s too slow in opening. It takes too long to change the Bibles from one to another on the first time. After the long delay, it’s smooth from there. But then, when I go to the second pane where I keep my study books, again, it’s slow. I hope it gets better.

The number of notes, highlights and bookmarks you each have puts you in the top 1% of PocketBible users. We’re finding that people with thousands of notes, highlights and bookmarks are more affected by the way the Toolbox works on the iPad than the vast majority of PocketBible users.

Despite the fact that such a small number are affected, I’m working on more changes to improve the speed. I’ll have to disable some functionality that i-devices simply don’t have the processing power to support when you have thousands or tens of thousands of data items. But I’m hoping you’ll like the performance improvement.

In the meantime, turn on the locks on all the Toolbox panes. That will speed things up. Don’t leave more books open in each pane than what you really need. And don’t install more books than you need.

I am having the same problem with long launch times on my iPad after updating to version 3. This morning I timed it at 40 seconds. I have not changed my setup from the previous version at all. I have 3 tabs open, same as before. In addition, performance is sluggish in the extreme. If I were to venture a guess, I’d say it’s synchronizing after about every move, and taking long time to do so.

I’m a long time fan and user of PocketBible. I used it on my HP Jornada PDA for years. I was disappointed when I found out you didn’t support my Windows7 smartphone. However, now that I have an iPad, I’m loving PocketBible even more. Thanks for a great app!